1. Introduction
Let be an algebra. For , is called Jordan product. Recall that a map is said to be a derivation if for all . A map is called a Jordan derivation which satisfies for . An involution is a map from into itself, usually denoted by ∗, which satisfies , and , for any . Moreover, if is an algebra over the ground field , ∗ also satisfies , for all and , where denotes the complex conjugation of . A ∗-algebra is an algebra equipped with an involution ∗.
Let
be a ∗-algebra over the complex field
and
be a nonzero complex number. For any elements
, the
-Jordan ∗-product is defined by
. The
-Jordan ∗-product and 1-Jordan ∗-product, which are usually written as
and
, are considerably significant and very important for specific research topics, for example, see [
1,
2,
3]. A mapping
is said to preserve the product if
for all elements
. The
-Jordan ∗-product is said to be preserved if
, a feature that has attracted the attention of many researchers (for example, see [
4,
5,
6]).
An additive derivation is said to be an additive ∗-derivation if
for all
. A map
that is not necessarily linear is said to be a nonlinear
-∗-Jordan derivation if
for all
. Clearly, for
and
, the
-∗-Jordan derivation map is a ∗-Lie derivation and a ∗-Jordan derivation, respectively. Similarly, a map
is said to be
-∗-Jordan triple derivation if it satisfies the condition
for all
.
Given the consideration of
-∗-Jordan derivations and
-∗-Jordan triple derivations, we can further develop them in a natural way. Suppose that
is a fixed positive integer. A map
is called a nonlinear
-∗-Jordan
n-derivation if
for all
. Given this definition, it is clear that each ∗-Jordan derivation is a 1-∗-Jordan 2-derivation and every ∗-Jordan
n-derivation is a 1-∗-Jordan
n-derivation. These derivations in different backgrounds have been studied extensively by several authors.
Recently, Zhang [
7] proved that every nonlinear 1-∗-Jordan 2-derivation between factor von Neumann algebras is an additive ∗-derivation. On the other hand, Yu and Zhang [
8] showed that every nonlinear (-1)-∗-Jordan 2-derivation on a factor von Neumann algebra is an additive ∗-derivation. In [
9], it is proved that the map
is a nonlinear
-∗-Jordan 2-derivation on von Neumann algebras without central abelian projections for all nonzero numbers
if and only if
is an additive ∗-derivation and
for all
In addition, Zhao and Li [
10] found that every nonlinear 1-∗-Jordan 3-derivation between von Neumann algebras with no central abelian projections of type
is an additive ∗-derivation. Darvish et al. [
11] showed that under the mild condition, nonlinear 1-∗-Jordan 3-derivations on prime ∗-algebras are an additive ∗-derivation. In [
12], Li et al. introduced the concept of (-1)-∗-Jordan 3-derivations on factor von Neumann algebras and obtained the same result. In [
13], the authors considered that a map
on prime ∗-algebras satisfies Equation (1) for a complex scalar
with
; then,
is an additive. Moreover, if
is self-adjoint, then
is ∗-derivation. It was shown in [
14] that if the map
on prime ∗-algebras satisfies Equation (1) for a complex scalar
, then
is an additive ∗-derivation and
for all
.
Li et al. [
15] proved that if a ∗-algebra
with the unit
I contains a nontrivial projection P that satisfies
and
, then a nonlinear 1-∗-Jordan
n-derivation on ∗-algebra
is an additive ∗-derivation. Lin [
16] showed that if
is a von Neumann algebra without nonzero central abelian projections, then a map
satisfying Equation (2) for
is an additive ∗-derivation. In [
17], Arshad Madni et al. proved that under some mild conditions, every nonlinear
-∗-Jordan
n-derivation (
) on a unital ∗-algebra is an additive ∗-derivation as well.
Motivated by the above-cited works, we will investigate the nonlinear
-∗-Jordan
n-derivations on some unital ∗-algebras with a nontrivial projection P satisfying
and
and prove that such maps must be additive ∗-derivations. For
and
, the conclusion can be found in [
15,
17], respectively. Therefore, in this paper, we will prove that the nonlinear
-∗-Jordan
n-derivations are additive ∗-derivations, where
and
is a fixed positive integer. Moreover, we apply the main result to some special classes of unital ∗-algebras. We found that
-∗-Jordan
n-derivations on prime ∗-algebras, von Neumann algebras with no central summands of type
, or factor von Neumann algebras are additive derivations, which generalized the existing results. Finally, some potential topics for future research are presented.
It is obvious that every nonlinear -∗-Jordan derivation on any ∗-algebra is a nonlinear -∗-Jordan n-derivation (), but we do not know whether the converse is true. Furthermore, we extend the results for -∗-Jordan n-derivations with to all nonzero complex numbers.
2. Preliminaries
Before presenting our obtained primary results, it is essential that we lay out some notations and preliminary knowledge. Suppose that
is a fixed positive integer and
is a nonzero complex number. Let us see a sequence of polynomials with a scalar
.
where
is the conjugate number of the complex number
(
).
It is not difficult to see that
Obviously,
depends on
. We also have the following result:
Lemma 1. If, then .
Proof. We only prove the case where
k is an odd number because the proof for the even case is similar. It is clear that
if
. Let
where
and
. For
, we have
Assume that
for
, it follows that
and
Because
, we obtain
. Hence
which indicates
. This contradicts the known condition. Therefore,
. □
Since the first variables are restricted to the set , we can obtain some expressions involving the combination of . Lemma 1 plays a foundational role throughout the entire proof.
Let and be nonzero idempotent elements of . It is well known that has a Peirce decomposition , where (), satisfying the following multiplicative relations:
- 1.
,
- 2.
if .
3. The Main Theorem and Its Proof
Theorem 1. Let be a unital ∗-algebra with the unit I and . Assume that contains a nontrivial projection P that satisfies
- (♠)
;
- (♣)
.
If the map satisfiesfor all and ,
where is a fixed positive integer, then φ is an additive ∗-
derivation and for all .
Proof. We will complete the proof by the following lemmas. □
Proof. Note that
It follows that
. □
Lemma 3. For all and , we have .
Proof. We only need to show that .
Since
, we have
Hence,
, from which we find that
Since
, we find that
.
On the other hand, since
, it follows that
Hence,
. We find that
, so
. Similarly, by applying
, we find that
. □
Lemma 4. For all , , and , we have
- (1)
;
- (2)
.
Proof. We only need to show (1) because the proof of (2) is similar. Let .
Since
, we have
Thus,
, which implies that
.
To complete the proof, we need to show that
. Considering
, we find that
It follows that
. So we derive that
. □
Lemma 5. For all , , and , we have
- (1)
;
- (2)
.
Proof. We only need to show that .
Using Lemma 3, we find that
Hence,
, which implies that
.
Since
, using Lemma 4, it follows that
Thus,
, which implies that
. Using a similar method, we obtain the second case. □
Lemma 6. For all ,
,
,
,
we have Proof. We only need to show that
Using Lemma 5, it follows that
Hence,
, which implies that
. Analogously, using
, we find that
. □
Lemma 7. For all with , we have .
Proof. Since
, using Lemma 6, we have
So,
. □
Lemma 8. For all , we have .
Proof. Let
. For
, we have
Hence,
, which implies that
.
On the other hand, for any
with
, using Lemmas 3 and 7, it follows that
Then, we find that
, which implies that
. Therefore, we obtain
, and it follows from (♠) and (♣) that
. □
Lemma 9. φ is an additive.
Proof. For every , we have , . Using Lemmas 6–8, we can show that . □
Lemma 10. .
Proof. Case 1: and .
Since
, we obtain
Thus,
Then, we have the following:
and
Using the above two equations, we find that
On the other hand, we find that
and
Then, by adding (
5) and (
6), we obtain
Hence, using (
4) and (
7), it follows that
which gives
Using (
3) and (
8), we find that
Since
and
, we have
Thus,
Then,
, which indicates that
On the other hand, with
and
, we find that
It follows that
Using (
9), we obtain
, which indicates that
Combining (
9) and (
10), we find that
. □
Proof. Firstly, we need to prove that for .
For
, it is obvious that
that is,
and
For
, since it follows that
when subtracting (
13) by (
11), we find that
which gives
Then, we find that
By repeating this construction, we obtain the case for
. Since
using (
12) and (
15), we find that
Hence, using (
14) and (
16), we have
Then, we obtain
.
We will prove the following assertion: if holds for all integers m with , then for a fixed integer k: .
Let
and
. Then, we use
to define some expressions related to
:
Since for , we obtain the following:
For
,
, that is,
For
,
, that is,
For
,
, that is,
For
,
, that is,
On the other hand, since
using (
17), if s is even, then
and if s is odd, then
Next, using (
18), we find that if s is even, then
and if s is odd, then
Continuing the computation step by step, we eventually obtain
where
which indicates that
.
Then, we find that for . Taking , we find that . Then, . □
Remark 1. We infer that by virtue of the recursive property, proceeding from higher to lower orders.
Lemma 12. for all .
Proof. For all
, we have
; that is,
Since
, it follows that
This, along with (
21), indicates that
Furthermore, for all
, we have
which gives
Using (
21) and (
23), we find that
On the other hand, since for
,
and
it follows that
and
By applying (
25) and (
26), we obtain
Moreover, using (
22) and (
24), we have
Hence,
In addition, using (
24) and (
27), we find that
Finally, using (
22), (
27) and (
28), we obtain
. □
Lemma 13. for all .
Proof. For all
, using (
24), we find that
Since
it follows that
Then,
Thus,
. □
Lemma 14. for all .
Proof. For every
, we have
and
and it follows that
and
Then,
Using (
27), we find that
which indicates that
for every
.
Therefore, for all
, since
, where
and
, we have
Then, we can prove that
□
Lemma 15. for all .
Proof. For every
, we have
On the other hand, we have
Combining (
30) and (
31), we find that
Then, using (
29), we obtain
It follows that
. □
Remark 2. Firstly, we find that φ is an additive by virtue of the Peirce decomposition. Then, we derive that by virtue of the recursive property, proceeding from higher to lower orders. Finally, we verify that φ is a ∗-derivation.
4. Corollaries
Taking into account certain special classes of ∗-algebras and our main result, which have great significance in functional analysis and operator theory, such as in the Classification of Operator Algebras, we can present some consequences. The first one is as follows:
Corollary 1. Let be a unital ∗-algebra with the unit I and let be a complex number. Assume that contains a nontrivial projection P, which satisfies
- (♠)
;
- (♣)
.
If the map satisfiesfor all , where is a fixed positive integer, then φ is an additive ∗-derivation and for all . An algebra is prime if for , implies that . Obviously, the prime ∗-algebras satisfy (♠) and (♣), then we have the following result:
Corollary 2. Suppose is a unital prime ∗-algebra with a nontrivial projection P and let be a complex number. If a map satisfiesfor all , where is a fixed positive integer, then φ is an additive ∗-derivation and for all . Remark 3. We can see that a unital ∗-algebra with the unit I contains a nontrivial projection P satisfying (♠) and (♣) has a broader scope than the unital prime ∗-algebras.
Example 1 ([
18])
. Let be an alternative ring with an idempotent . Consider the multiplication table given byBy a direct computation it can be verified that is not prime and satisfies the conditions of Theorem 1. A von Neumann algebra
is a weakly closed, self-adjoint algebra of operators on a Hilbert space
H containing the identity operator
I. It is shown in [
9] that every von Neumann algebra with no central summands of type
satisfies (♠) and (♣). Therefore, we have the following result:
Corollary 3. Let be a von Neumann algebra with no central summands of type and let be a complex number. Consider the map satisfyingfor all , where is a fixed positive integer, then φ is an additive ∗-derivation and for all . is a factor von Neumann algebra if its center only contains the scalar operators. It is well known that a factor von Neumann algebra is prime, which indicates that it always satisfies (♠) and (♣). Hence, we obtain the following:
Corollary 4. Let be a factor von Neumann algebra with and let be a complex number. Then, if , satisfyingfor all , where is a fixed positive integer, then φ is an additive ∗-derivation and for all . 5. Further Discussion
Let
be a ∗-algebra over the complex field
and
be a nonzero scalar. For any
, define a new product of
A and
B by
. This new product is said to be the bi-skew
-Jordan product. Clearly, the bi-skew 1-Jordan product is the so-called bi-skew Jordan product (
product), and the bi-skew
-Jordan product is the so-called bi-skew Lie product (
product). The products have attracted much authors’ attention [
19,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28]. Let
be a mapping (without the additivity assumption). The map
is called a nonlinear bi-skew
-Jordan derivation if
holds ture for all
. Similarly, a mapping
is called a nonlinear bi-skew
-Jordan triple derivation if it satisfies the condition
for all
, where
. We should note that
is not necessarily associative.
Taking into account the definitions of bi-skew
-Jordan derivations and bi-skew
-Jordan triple derivations, we can further develop them in one natural way. Suppose that
is a fixed positive integer. Let us see a sequence of polynomials with scalar
and *:
Accordingly, a nonlinear bi-skew
-Jordan
n-derivation is a mapping
satisfying the condition
for all
. From the definition, it is clear that each bi-skew Jordan derivation is a bi-skew 1-Jordan 2-derivation, and every bi-skew Jordan
n-derivation is a bi-skew 1-Jordan
n-derivation. Zhang and Zhu [
24] studied bi-skew 1-Jordan
n-derivations on ∗-algebra. Shavandi et al. [
27] and Zhang [
28] studied bi-skew (-1)-Jordan
n-derivations on factor von Neumann algebras and on ∗-algebra, respectively. A fundamental advancement for this line of research is to investigate whether each nonlinear bi-skew
-Jordan
n-derivation on ∗-algebras is an additive ∗-derivation. In view of the current work and existing results in this direction, we propose the following open question:
Question. Let
be a unital ∗-algebra with the unit
I. Assume that
contains a nontrivial projection
P which satisfies
and
Then,
is a nonlinear bi-skew
-Jordan
n-derivation on
if and only if
is an additive ∗-derivation and
for all
?